A hospital slowly fades away in rural Pennsylvania

BERWICK, Pa. — The emergency room was dark, the doors locked for months now, and a young woman stood outside in the rain, clutching her stomach and sobbing. No one was coming out to help. The frantic people who drove the ailing woman to the hospital stood, dumbfounded, in the mostly empty parking lot. “This is insane,” the driver said. “I’m going to have to call 911.” On Sept. 17, the Pennsylvania Department of Health shut down Berwick Hospital Center’s emergency room because of a lack of staffing, accelerating a closure its owners planned out earlier that summer. Signs on…